The main problem of all existing methods for designing or simulating a dynamic cross-connecting (XC) network is inability to provide a well-based, highly probable traffic matrix (i.e., a traffic prediction table for the network), which is usually unavailable at a design stage, and even at a given state of a real existing network.
The detailed traffic planning is usually impossible, and indeed—would such be possible, new methods for planning/designing/simulation would not be required.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,330,652B describes a technique for selecting optical amplifier placement in an optical network. In one embodiment an algorithm is used to eliminate from consideration optical amplifier configurations unlikely to have satisfactory minimum power characteristics. In one embodiment the quality of service of each configuration of the subset is analyzed to determine an optical amplifier placement configuration having a minimal number of amplifiers and a desirable quality of service. Such a solution speaks a little about simulating/planning a network as a whole.
US2005208949A describes a method for channel assignment in a wireless network, which includes determining a channel/route configuration, assignments and routing information for a plurality of network nodes based on providing a desired initial network cross-section throughput. The document also discusses determining a link capacity for each link between a plurality of node pairs, and modifying the route information of the channel/route configuration according to the link capacity. However, all that requires information about a more or less probable traffic matrix.
US2009059814A describes an interactive software-based network design tool that may be used to simulate and view the operation of a wireless mesh device network. The tool is supposed to allow a user to create a model of a wireless network, to input several design requirements, and automatically generate and view communication routes and schedules for the wireless network. The network design tool provides an interactive graphic interface for the addition, removal, and positioning of nodes and devices within the wireless network and a menu including several interactive screens for specifying threshold values, network topology selections, routing preferences, and other configuration parameters related to generating and optimizing communication routes and schedules within the wireless mesh network. The network design tool automatically applies a set of optimization rules along with the parameters input by user to the network model in order to generate efficient network configuration data. Again, for utilizing the method described in the document, a traffic matrix (having considered probability) should be provided in advance.
Ahmet A. Akyamec et al in the article “Optical mesh network modeling: simulation and analysis of restoration performance” present two approaches for estimating restoration latency performance (restoration times) in mesh networks—an analytical approach and a simulation approach. The article does not deal with estimating/planning/simulating optimal capacity of mesh networks.